148615-so-dominion-and-exiles-page-5
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8 Content In effect, becoming the same ultimatum the Dominion tends to give. "Do as we say or die." Which leads us back to my earlier point. The Dominion is worse simply due to it's sheer size and greater ability. Not an inherent difference in nature. Not just bomb but tear down the entire nation. When that failed, they fled and allied themselves with the enemies of that nation who were actively looking for any opportunity to attack them. Not that I would blame the Exiles for allying with their former enemies. It really was their only chance once they lost the attempted coup. | |} ---- ---- In a way I am glad that Naz posted this, because he exemplifies a problem that has plagued Carbine and by extension this game) since its beginning: the inability to distinguish between one's own beliefs and preferences, and the consumer public's beliefs and preferences. Put simply, one need not deal in the slightest with Naz' assertions to understand they are irrelevant. This is ultimately not a game about morality, it's a game about shooting monsters in the face until they explode (pinyata-like) into shiny new pixels. Just to be clear, I don't consider this an assertion other then one of the obvious: to the best of my knowledge Wildstar's story is completely linear and you (as a player) never get any decision of any significance. If there is a quest outcome that you want to avoid... well, you can't. If you don't want Sadie to die in the shuttle, you're just plain old stuck. The NPCs will wait for you to turn in the quest, their only dialogue loaded and ready to go. This is in comparison to SW:TOR, which is a game about moral choices. While there are occasions you are railroaded into a decision in SW:TOR, it's generally the exception, whereas it's the rule in Wildstar (with, to my knowledge, NO exceptions). I'm not saying that one game is better then the other; I'm saying they are different games meant to appeal to different audiences. Audiences here being another way of saying customers. Which beings me back to Naz: if enjoyment of the Dominion requires shedding one's bourgeois morality and embracing his whatever... then we might as well close up shop. Remove the Dominion as a player faction and concentrate what design resources they have on the Exiles. This requires no evaluation of the truth of Naz' worldview or morality or philosophy... simply a recognition of it's limited consumer appeal. Again, this is independent of the actual substance of Naz' views. Hypothetically, if a game developer was allocating resources and one element of the game was designed to appeal to, let's say, Orthodox Jews, it is entirely relevant to point out there are only about one million Orthodox Jews in the USA, and the vast majority of them have very limited interest in MMOs. Numbers matter in business, and this is business. Let's be fair: it's also worth pointing out that commercial success is not the same as artistic success, and innovative storytelling is not necessarily the most commercially successful. But to the extent that this is a discussion about anything worth discussing, it's about numbers. Namely, that the Dominion doesn't have enough of them. If it takes a mindset like Naz' demonstrates to be comfortable with the Dominion (for the sake of argument), then it seems the empirical truth that there simply aren't enough people that share that mindset (that are interested in MMOs) to support a second faction. If we consider Naz' comments to be true, that is, that in order to appreciate the Dominion as the authors believe, one must share Naz' overall viewpoint,for the sake of argument let's call it Nietzschian moral relativism, then we might as well close the Dominion as a faction and allocate scarce developer resources to the Exiles and soft-relaunch Wildstar as a single faction PvE-centric game. PvP can be accommodated by instanced/arena style team competitions with little to nothing lost (given that open world PvP is, I am led to believe, already dead). The simple fact of the matter is that the lore writers failed. If their intention was to present two morally equivalent factions, ala World of Warcraft, they did not succeed. Again, this is not primarily a moral discussion, but a matter of consumer choice: there simply aren't enough Nietzschian moral relativists to populate the Dominion, and (even among people that play the Dominion) the consensus among non-Nietzschian moral relativists is that the Dominion is... I think the term we settled on was "violent racist assholes". Like 40 man raids, like attunements, like "HARDCORE!", Carbine is gradually going to have to realize that they fundamentally missed the mark with a lot of what they thoughts worked. F2P is only the most obvious element of change, not the final element. Actually, the CAD comic I link above kinda explains the whole matter: it doesn't matter how convinced you are about being right, Wildstar is ultimately a consumer good. Either accept that the consumers don't like what you did and change, or go out of business. | |} ---- I think either I don't remember what I posted or you misunderstood what I said. (Anyone is free to quote the post in this example so I can try to determine my intentions lol.) And I don't blame you, it's very easy to get lost in this discussion. The Exile humans were originally part of the Dominion and chose to branch off of their own will. There was a big fight over it because both sides wanted to have their way. (Simple summary, don't really feel like starting an argument about Brightland's Rebellion right now.) When I talked about the "Join or Die" thing, I was referring to how the Dominion usually does things. They offer the opportunity to join them, and if you say no, there's a good chance they might eliminate you anyway. Though this is also not always the case otherwise the Draken would be no more. The Empire proved their might on the Draken's terms, which is was something significant to me. In the Chua's case, they gave them technology and then offered them the choice later. Anyway, my intention was that I wanted to point out the Exiles don't give most people a choice either. As the Celestion example with the Torine, they chose to take what they want against the native's wishes. Though I guess there could have been an inferred "Join or Die" speech in that quest log. | |} ---- I don't want to come down too hard on this because I don't get the impression that you're trolling in the same way that Bytek and Nazryn are, but I do think this is a considerable overstatement. First and foremost, the statement that the Exiles don't give "most" people a choice either strikes me as a really odd one given that we're talking about the same example every time. Are there a lot of other examples that aren't simply paralleled by the Dominion as part of the leveling quests? Second, while I want to be very clear that the way the Exiles shove the Torine out of their way in Celestion IS a bad thing, the details of it are not at all the same in some ways that I think really profoundly influence our thinking about morality. The Exiles are not playing a "Join or Die" game at all. There is no avoiding that statement. They want the Godswood, no question, and they're going to take it by force if necessary, but they have no interest in the Torine and the Torine actually can stay alive by simply getting out of the way. They don't take that option and decide to fight instead. But the option is available to the Torine to withdraw and get out of the way and end the fighting while remaining free of Exile control at every turn, even as you fight them. The Aurin did not have the option to get out of the way. Even if we accept the idea that all the Dominion wants is the resources on Arboria and have no interest in punishing the Aurin at all, they're defoliating entire continents and committing a major extinction event on that planet. The Aurin were not a space-faring people, they could not simply pick up and head to a nearby world. If the Exiles had not returned to evacuate them, they would have no way to retreat after resistance failed, nowhere to go, and no way to survive. They might as well fight to the death, because if they lose they're dead. The Granok also did not have the option to step aside and continue to survive. The Dominion actually wanted THEM, not Gnox, so their only course of action was to either fight their way through or end up subjugated/dead. The same applies to the Aurin if the Aurin were in fact being punished by the Dominion; I have yet to see anything to convince me one way or the other whether that was part of the point of the invasion or not. The Mordesh did not have the option to step aside and continue to survive. The Dominion was trying to destroy every ship to attempt to leave a planet infested with Mordesh-destroying zombies. The Draken did not have the option to step aside and were subjugated. Even the Cassians didn't have the option to step aside--at least, not while the Eldan were still around. The Mechari did not offer them any opportunity to step aside, turn down the "opportunity" to be half of the source material for the Luminai, and continue to live in peace. ... I suddenly find myself wondering if the mystery individuals that the Eldan went to for advice on the Protoplasmic Resonator were the Mechari, deciding it was time to be rid of their masters and rule through the Dominion. :blink: Hopefully we'll find out! :lol: But that's off-topic. In the end, grabbing up resources simply because you can is a bad thing, no question. I don't want to excuse it. The Exiles are in the wrong there. But grabbing up resources simply because you can while also knowing that by doing so you effectively guarantee the extinction of an entire species of sentients who require it to survive is worse. And doing it when you can continue to survive even if you don't do it? That's worse still. So no, they really aren't all that similar at all. Edit: Rereading the posts above me and this one jumped out too: C'mon, man. If you don't want to start an argument, don't make statements that are the moral equivalent of "When I'm stepping on your face and you take a swing at me, the ensuing fight is because both sides wanted to have their way". You know just as well as the rest of us who are familiar with the lore that that summary is simple to the point of being misleading. Edited January 13, 2016 by yasfan | |} ---- ---- Very true! People who argue their points sincerely, honestly, and well can often simply place different priorities on how they make decisions. They can sincerely make mistakes or be misinformed. None of those things are trolling at all. I can respect honestly represented and opinions made in good faith even if I don't agree with them. I can respect sarcasm to make a point when it's clever and ultimately clear that's what it is. But people repeatedly and insistently declaring falsehoods, fallacies, and misrepresentations even after being called out on it? A lot of the time, that's trolling. If it helps, I don't think it was in your case. I think you simply didn't recognize that all your follow up posts weren't actually walking back your original statement, and I didn't recognize that your follow-ups were intended to walk back your original statement through several rounds of us back-and-forthing. Frustration ensued on both sides. And for what it's worth, I am sorry for my part in that. | |} ---- ---- I haven't quested on Exile side in a long time, but I don't remember any quest where they tried to negotiate peacefully with a native inhabitant on Nexus. The Dominion at least makes an effort despite how bad things go wrong. I agree with you that they aren't directly playing that game but I don't think the fact that the Torine can flee somewhere else makes their actions any better. The Mordesh need a lot of resources to make more Vitalus as well as research a cure. Eventually, the Torine are going to run out of places to flee if the Exiles win the fight against the Dominion. The Torine also aren't space-faring. Though I guess maybe the Exiles will be nice enough to give them a small piece of land they have no use for, as long as they continue to let the Exiles do as they please. And yes, I realize this could also happen if the Dominion win as well. As far as I'm concerned, this event is a small scale version of Arboria which leads me to believe that the Exiles might behave very similarly to the Dominion if they had the power. They might have had an option to stand aside and survive after the War on Gnox. The ones that remain on Gnox are surviving just fine. The Granok also took every opportunity to settle the score with the Dominion, so I can't blame the Dominion for pursuing them after that. The Dominion was trying to prevent the spread of the Contagion. If a similar outbreak happened in our world, I would be okay with a quarantine being established similar to that of the Dominion. Even if I am trapped in that quarantine, I am okay with this if it means more lives will be saved. I know there would be quite a few casualties with the non-infected being mixed in, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I try not to bring up real life stuff into this (though this is more hypothetical) but this is precisely the reason why I don't have a problem with how the Dominion reacted. I do agree that they should have at least tried to save some of the non-infected, but at the same time, I don't think their actions are wrong. They did have the option to refuse the offer and fight to the bitter end. But the Dominion approached them in a way that was respectful to their culture. The Dominion proved their might fair and square. They could have easily invaded and started a large scale war, but they settled the matter in honorable combat. I'm sure some Draken didn't agree with this decision, but overall, the Dominion earned their loyalty. You won't hear any protest from me about this. I'm not fond of the Eldan. On the other hand, I also have no pity on the Cassians. See Rise of the Cassians, part 2. Their bullying of simply got the attention of a bigger bully. The Eldan knew they were perfect for their plan because they were essentially already doing what they wanted them to. What's really sad, is the only reason Brightland's Rebellion started was because restrictions were imposed on them. Subjugating other people is fine and dandy as long as it doesn't effect them. I'm curious about whether the Exiles tried to help these other repressed colonies, or did they simply focus on those that would be most useful to them? If so, that kinda sounds like a smaller version of the Dominion to me. As I have said in this post and at least one previous post, I am never trying to argue who is more evil. "The sky is blue. The sky is blue. The sky is blue." I still think they are fairly similar. Maybe not exact copies, but I could easily seeing them subjugate the sentient races already inhabiting Nexus. I mean, it's pretty clear that many of the native races don't want them there but it's not stopping the Exiles from respecting their wishes. Consequently, I also find the Dominion to be in the wrong in this case. All in all, I think both sides are evil and shouldn't colonize Nexus. Edited January 13, 2016 by Spider Bro Jenkins | |} ---- I like to think it was the Ikthians making an anonymous donation or some new race we haven't heard of that were the enemies of the Eldan. Eh, if people want they can look up the lore themselves and reach their own conclusion. I didn't feel like making a big summary about it (not yet at least). Also, I was summarizing what I heard from the official lore. More specifically, how the Exile humans view the Cassians. This means, to me, that neither side is willing to compromise (which still means "both sides wanted to have their way" to me). I suppose I could have used a better choice in words, but I didn't. :P Edited January 13, 2016 by Spider Bro Jenkins | |} ---- There is no relativism here, the story simply has two factions that both display the very best and worst of two archetypes of morality we all hold. We all understand fundamentally the goodness of justice and nobility. And we all understand fundamentally the goodness of intent and utility. But BOTH of those archetypes can be taken to good and bad extremes. Bytek mentioned that the Dominion might be "worse" only because of it's size... frankly Bytek tends to make the most sense on a lot of these issues, but this isn't wholly true. Because If we are to say Dominion atrocities are worse simply by size, then it follows that it is much better by the magnitude of good it does for it's citizens and allies. However, one fatal flaw in this is that even as a MUCH larger political entity, the Dominion's atrocities are demonstrably less bad then the Exiles when we talk about real results. When we consider the loss of life, regardless of intent, the Exiles have left a path of death and destruction far beyond the Dominion. The Mordesh saw to the deaths of at least 5 billion of their own in a matter of weeks. Brightland killed tens of thousands of innocent people in a surprise coup attempt, and the Granok slaughtered whole legions of Dominion soldiers in a war they started. And what did the Dominion do? Killed a lot of Granok, but not as many as they killed of the Dominion. And they killed a couple thousand Aurin who attacked the planet reapers. Let's be extremely conservative, lets say 4 billion Granok (far more than realistic) perished on Gnox and 100 million Aurin died on Arboria (again, far more than realistic, those who fled the planet reapers still live, on Nexus and Arboria). That puts the Dominion's atrocities well below even JUST the death toll of Victor Lazarin.... Who killed 3/4 the Mordesh (a population of 7-9 billion) within the first 2 weeks of his snake oil immortality juice going bad, and the entirety of life on Grismara within a few decades. So what we have, is a faction (the Dominion) who by virtue of massive size, should have a higher body count than the tiny, rag-tag group of criminals, exiles, and renegades (the Exiles), but can't even top the deaths caused by a single, arrogant Exile scientist. And of course, this again is completely ignoring the trillions of people and as Durek put it "innumerable worlds" that prosper under the Dominion, with free healthcare and education provided by the VC for ALL citizens, and the ability for even the most poor citizens to move up the social ladder through merit (like Corrigan Doon, and Toric Antevian). Now, Buzzsaw, you also seem to believe anyone "has" to make a faction "good" in their eyes to enjoy playing them... that's preposterous, many players love playing the "bad guy". But you can just as easily play the "bad guy" on the Exile side as you can on the Dominion side. Neither faction is itself good or bad, but both have extremely good and extremely bad elements. An aurin can RP the sandthorns and kill everyone as an eco-terrorist, a Mordesh can RP as a Black Hood / Alchemist and poison whole forests (e.g. in Ellevar) to kill all life in them to spite the Dominion. They can torture innocent farmers and their own comrades to extract vital information, or assassinate members of their own faction for sympathizing with the "enemy". Heck you could even play a criminal outlaw who will almost kill someone just because they aren't his wife coming out of a cryopod he mistakenly opened instead of hers... Likewise, as a Dominion player can RP as a Radiant Legionnaire, protecting the weak and following the most objectively good character in the game (Toric) into battle to save helpless villagers and stop tyrannical monsters. A Dominion Player can RP a treasure hunter like Artemis Zin or Corrigan Doon, and seek out the mysterious relics of their progenitors, the Eldan... Unlike say, the Sith Empire who seeks power for powers sake, the Dominion seeks their own personal history and to discover what became of their literal gods while keeping peace and justice in the Galaxy as their gods instructed them to. That's not an "evil" goal, its even a very noble one. The Exiles likewise seek to oppose the Dominion / survive, also not a bad goal per see. You think the Dominion is evil because people with out Eldan genes are socially lower than those with? Cry African Americans and Latino's a river, there's social heirarchy in the Exiles as well... That's not ideal, but it hardly makes a political entity "evil", especially given that lowborn Cassians, Chua, Draken, and Mechari without Eldan genes occupy the highest positions in the Empire, and each is represented on the Emperor's personal council, consisting of Mondo Zax (Chua), Kezerek Warbringer (Draken), Axis Pheydra (Mechari), Toric Antevian (Low-Born Cassian), and Varonia Cazalon (High-Born Cassian). Seriously, play both factions... there isn't a disconnect between what the writers are "saying" and "showing", there is a problem of people playing bunny girls and never playing the other faction ,so they only get one side of the narrative and believe it's the only side. Edited January 13, 2016 by Nazryn | |} ---- Not really wanting to get too much into this side of things, but my answer would be along the lines that a healthy society promotes the very highest aspects of sapient beings rather than concentrating on only the bestial 'healthy, fat and 'happy'' aspect. Just as one of the most damning arguments against Plato's 'Republic' is that the person in the book who's arguing for it (Socrates), who was also the mentor and hero of the one who wrote it, wouldn't be welcome there one little bit; we could also kind of test whether that great thinker, whose arguments you're using to provide a lot of philosophical justification for the Dominion (Nietzsche), would be welcome in the Dominion? We're encouraged to monitor (with implied dire consequences) folks who are merely grumbling a bit about aspects of the Dominion, or being on Nexus. The old intro was a bit more explicit about what happens to those with 'deviant' opinions. How do you think Nietzsche's savaging of science, church and nationalism would have gone down in the Dominion? I would also say that I despise extremist Utilitarian 'ethics' ('Can't make an empire without breaking a few planets... for our utopian greater good of course'), being more in favour of (tweaked) Natural Rights style ethics. So, as mentioned by others, 'Just leave me alone!' trumps 'But we know what's best for you, and will make it happen, regardless of your wishes' every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Not so much Slave Morality there, as 'Will you just let me become ubermensch in peace?!' :P Edited January 14, 2016 by SweetSlinger | |} ---- It's not at all irrelevant. People care about lore, people care about context, and people care about setting. Suggesting the real (not imagined) nature of the Factions is irrelevant here is akin to suggesting the nature of the Empire / Republic is immaterial in SWTOR. As for your assesment of W*'s future, you could be right, but if you were it would have little to do with the Dominion and everything to do with 1) tanking interest in MMORPG's 2) lack of interest in W*'s gameplay and features As for my opinon of the games future, that Carbine is currently hiring is telling. Also, the actual reason the Exiles have such a population difference is exceedingly simple and can be summed up in a single word: Aurin. at their lowest, one FIFTH of the games population played an Aurin... It's only gone up. You wanna get more players on the Dominion? Make Blood Aurin... remember how that worked for the Horde ;) Edited January 13, 2016 by Nazryn | |} ---- Well, thanks for demonstrating that my earlier point was accurate, Basically nothing in your 'response' actually touched on the point I made (again and again...) in my comment: "Numbers matter in business, and this is business." Your response has nothing to do with business, nothing to do with storytelling, nothing to do with tone. Your response is instead the response of someone with a Nietzsche hammer in search of a nail. The best example is this; This is so dumb, misses the point so badly, I'm almost at a loss for words (almost!). It's Carbine's job to convince me to play their game. It's their job to convince me and anyone else that the Dominion is fun. Their job to sell the Dominion as worth my time and my money. Let's also be real (for a change): most people don't care about the backstory. When they pick a faction their initial thoughts go something like this; 1) What does my character look like (i.e., which side has the best looking races)? 2) Where are my friends? Right now the Dominion is falling down on both fronts. Because the Dominion races aren't attracting people with no prior interest in the game, there end up being fewer people on the whole on the Dominion. Which means that you are more likely to get... well, everything, on the Exile side. More groups for PvE, more partners for leveling, more partners for RP, yadda, yadda, yadda. This is why I haven't really addressed the specifics of your moral evaluation of Dominion/Exiles; not because I don't agree (oh man, do I not agree), but because it's irrelevant. If Carbine shares your views... well, then things are not looking good for the future of this game. Edited January 13, 2016 by Buzzsaw | |} ---- Well, yes. When you start stomping on my face and I hit you in the shin, it does mean that I want you to stop stomping on my face while you want to stomp on my face. We both want to have our way. The problem is that, they way you are saying it, you are implying that the Exiles wanting to stop being persecuted and the Cassians wanting to persecute the Exiles are moral equivalent. Furthermore, the phrase "reconcilliation is impossible" does not imply that the Exiles will wage war to the Cassians if the Cassians stop chasing them all over the galaxy. The same way that me hitting you in the shin does not mean that I would continue hitting you in the shin once you stop stomping my face. It just means we are unlikely to become friends/join the same faction. | |} ---- Not to be overly dismissive, but you do realize that you're now just repeating my own points back as if they are your own, right? That aside, in all honesty I think this conversation is largely past the point of utility. Attempting to change people's minds about the moral nature of the sides is largely irrelevant (as well as functionally futile) because the people on this forum were never the big problem: the problem has always been people who never take the step to try the game, much less take part in forum debates (which is why I have refrained from debating Naz' theories, who seems quickly heading into fan-fiction land in his posts...). Right now I'm going to wait and see what the big announcement is that has been promised for the 13th. Then... I dunno. There is a new NCSoft game being released literally next week, so I'll go from there. | |} ---- Edited January 13, 2016 by Nazryn | |} ---- Rather than try to say what I mean for me, please consider asking what I meant. I was never implying they were morally equivalent. I am never arguing which side is more evil either. Edited January 13, 2016 by Spider Bro Jenkins | |} ---- Rather than try to say what I mean for me, please consider asking what I meant. I was never implying they were morally equivalent. I am never arguing which side is more evil either. Illdur is making a baseless claim here. The Dominion is not "persecuting" the Exiles. The Exiles are Criminals / terrorists by Dominion law, they are exacting justice. The claim that the Dominion is "persecuting" the Exiles is identical to the claim that major government here is "persecuting" Terrorist Organization Here.... Spider Bro Jenkins, on 13 Jan 2016 - 5:26 PM, said: Spider Bro Jenkins, on 08 Jan 2016 - 06:23 AM, said: Your points are pretty much all on spot Spider. But I'll happily take up the nitpicking The Difference between the Exiles and the Dominion is that: The Exiles will kill a billion people but feel good about it because they were trying to give them superpowers | The Dominion will kill a million people and feel good about it because they were trying to protect and serve their citizens Edited January 13, 2016 by Nazryn | |} ---- ---- Edited January 13, 2016 by Nazryn | |} ---- I can tell you that I hate burgers, but if you keep seeing me eating burgers very often that's not going to make my statement true. But I digress. I don't think you think what you think I think you think! Pay attention to this part on what I said: Not going to argue against the clarifications you quoted there because I wasn't actually talking about any of them. Sorry for not pointing that out better. Here's where the point I was talking about: Summarizing an event where one side is trying actively to subjugate and control the other as "Well...both sides wanted to have their way, you see!" is not only fairly obvious (I want to steal your wallet; you don't want me to steal your wallet; we both want the result to be the one we want it to be), which isn't a crime, but you are also painting it neutrally by ignoring the morality and by the phrasing: It wasn't a matter of justice, ethics or morals. It was a matter of two sides trying to have their way out of their own will. Edited January 14, 2016 by Ildur | |} ---- Once again, I am not trying to paint this in a way that makes the Dominion better. I really do see the conflict as both sides wanting their way. The Devs have also summarized in at least a similar way on more than one occasion. Notice how I bold the part that has nothing to do with which side is more evil. Maybe the way I summarized these two sources wasn't the best choice of words, which is why I'm quoting what lead me to summarize it in this way. Even in your example (and also the one that Yasfan bought up), it is still an example of both sides wanting their way, no matter which side is right or wrong. This is literally at the heart of all conflicts. Once again, I am not arguing about which side is right or wrong. I'm sorry if I'm having trouble understanding you and Yasfan, but it seems like you are both complaining that I'm not constantly bringing up how bad the Dominion is with everything I post. I like to think that the fact I say it in at least five posts would make the message clear that this isn't what I'm focusing on. I admitted in the post you quoted that it was a simple summary. I would have to make a significantly longer post to do that event justice. I didn't feel like doing that and opted for a really brief summary with a reference to the event I was talking about so someone could look it up if they were really curious (and draw their own conclusions). So are we clear that I admit the Dominion is more evil than the Exiles (at least in terms of scale), and I had no intention to touch on that argument in my very brief and incomplete summary of Brightland's Rebellion or are you going to continue to complain about how I phrased it even though I like to think I clarified my intentions in this post? I apologize if I seem antagonistic, I am not trying to sound this way. I am just trying my best to communicate that I have no interest in the argument about which side is more evil. Edited January 14, 2016 by Spider Bro Jenkins | |} ---- Quite honestly, I tried writing a response to your more recent posts and I can't take it seriously enough to bother. There's just too much in them that you've said that's factually wrong or that relies on reasoning that's just silly. Maybe I'd feel differently about it if it hadn't come right after that fun semantic game where you declare repeatedly that an abuser and a victim can't get along because each side wants their own way and neither is willing to compromise. But that's such a deliberate use of semantics to say something technically true but conceptually obscene that it's really impossible for me to entertain the idea that a reasonable discussion is possible here. Done feeding the trolls here. | |} ---- 1. The Aurin did NOT commit, or attempt to commit, genocide on the species Gormash the Lopp-Crusher is, something that the Dominion has attempted on the Aurin and continues to try and inflict on them. That ONE particular beast was killing Lopp from a nearby village. You even get a quest to return stolen eggs to their mother, the same species as Gormash, and when you turn the quest in, the PC ends with saying that the mother wasn't so bad. Wait, so just because the Aurin believe in trying to preserve natural environments, that does NOT give them the right to defend themselves, or possible allies, from harm? Self-defense is suddenly comparing the Aurin to the horrible things the Dominion has done? It's "micro dominiation"? That's a load of crap. "Gormash needs to die because it needs to find other things to eat?" ... That makes absolutely no sense. Neither is your statement about Lopp loving Aurin fur boots. What does THAT have to do with anything? 2. Yep, the Aurin do take care of their Veggies with tender loving care before eating them. Just like how there are people in the real world who raise livestock for meat with love and care. Those people do exist. Myala showed sympathy towards the Veggies for being terrified as the Chua burn them to a crisp. Just because someone is raising a living thing to be food doesn't mean they believe there is no value to that life. That is why the Aurin believe in the gentle killing of prey. I personally love eating meat, but I would object to any cruel treatment of the animal that was killed to give me that meat. 3. What's wrong with comparing Aurin to the Chua or the Draken? All the races in WS are fair game for comparison. It is not a case of comparing apples to oranges at all. How are they more evil than the Ekose or the Lopp? How are they incomparable to Chua or Draken? Prove it. The Aurin aren't hunting beasts to extinction for fun (There is a Cassian conservationist in Deradune that outright states that if the Draken aren't controlled, they'll do just that!), they don't throw people and animals into an arena and force them to fight for entertainment (Like the Draken do), they don't capture animals and have then shipped to other places for the purpose of being stalked and hunted (Like the Draken do!). I have seen nothing about them skinning Chua or Draken and turning them into fashion accessories. But because they helped save the Lopp by killing a monster that was eating them, and they eat sentient Veggies (Which ALL races do!) that makes them the more evil species? That makes no sense. 4. You clearly have forgotten -why- the Aurin watcher had you kill the forest spirit. It was because they needed its horn to help the forest and its animals which were being destroyed and experimented on by Chua, and the forest -itself- told that Aurin watcher what was going on. Or were you asleep at the part where the Aurin watcher was communing with the forest? It was for the greater good of the forest and its animals as a whole, and the spirit was brought back to life immediately! It wasn't, "Hey! Go kill that spirit because it'd be fun!" The Aurin watcher even told Arwick that he refused to fight in the war because he believed his duty to protecting the forest was more important than winning the war against the Dominion. It just so happened to be Dommies that were messing with the forest he swore to protect. 5. Oh goody, you know how to look up the definition of a word on the internet! Good for you, cupcake! But you don't seem to know how to apply the definition of that word to this discussion. How many times do I have to say that -so long as the environment is respected and maintained, the Aurin are cool with killing and eating living things-? This is stated in lore. This is shown in-game. Or have you forgotten the Aurin watchers that constantly remind you to kill your prey gently and without cruelty, or scold you for killing something unnecessarily? Cultivating and eating Veggies isn't hypocritical because the Aurin are not treating them with cruelty or ruining the environment by doing so. Your post makes no sense. At all. Edited to be nicer. Edited January 14, 2016 by Kintallo | |} ----